Environment

Why should investors care about ocean health?

Development Matters Climate change, Development finance, Private Sector, SDGs , ,

by Dennis Fritsch, PhD, Researcher, Responsible Investor

This blog is part of the
OECD Private Finance for Sustainable Development Conference

Ocean health

“The World’s Oceans Are in Trouble. And So Are Humans, Warns U.N. Report” – a blaring headline in Time Magazine just after the IPCC published their landmark report Oceans and the Cryosphere in September 2019. It highlights what scientists and NGOs have been shouting from the rooftops for years: human activity has put the global ocean in a dire state and by doing so is endangering planetary life as we know it. But how has it come this far? In addition to producing over half of the oxygen we breathe, being the largest carbon sink on the planet and a haven for biodiversity, a healthy ocean is a source of economic livelihoods for billions of people. The value of global ocean assets is estimated at over USD 24 trillion[1] making it the 7th largest economy in the world in GDP terms. Due to its integral role in the global financial and environmental ecosystems, the ocean is high on the international policy agenda[2] and its importance continues to grow. The global ‘Blue Economy’ is expected to expand at twice the rate of the mainstream economy until 2030[3], and already contributes USD 2.5 trillion a year in economic output. Continue reading →

Forging a new way forward for development co-operation in the face of the climate crisis

Development Matters Climate change ,

By Jorge Moreira da Silva, Director, OECD Development Co-operation Directorate

climate-change

Time is running out. The climate crisis is rapidly altering the systems that underpin life on Earth, multiplying existing threats to development while creating new obstacles. It will influence how countries develop for the rest of this century and beyond. As we head into 2020 — when countries will prepare and submit their next round of commitments under the Paris Agreement to commence its implementation — it is timely to check in on progress so far. Specifically, how donor countries and providers of development co-operation are accounting for climate change and aligning their activities with the objectives of the Agreement to ensure they are not supporting unsustainable development.

The climate crisis is affecting communities across the globe, most recently contributing to catastrophic bushfires in multiple states of Australia.  At the same time in the central and southern parts of Mozambique, at least 1.6 million people are in need of assistance due to the devastating effects of the ongoing drought and increasingly severe weather events linked to climate change. These event have been unfolding just months after disastrous fires in the Amazon, underscoring that we are indeed living in a new normal. Amid these events, at the 2019 United Nations (UN) Climate Action Summit in New York this past September, the OECD brought together over 30 climate and development leaders to urgently discuss the imperative to align the development and climate agendas, reflecting on key messages and priorities for the institutions that provide development co-operation. Continue reading →

Strengthening development in the face of the climate crisis and environmental degradation

Development Matters Climate change , , ,

By Jorge Moreira da Silva, Director, OECD Development Co-operation Directorate and Andrew Norton, Director, International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)

Amazon-fire-climate-change
Aftermath of a Brazilian Amazon fire

The climate emergency and broader environmental destruction — from forest devastation to loss of biodiversity to depleted water supplies — are challenging international aid agencies’ collective ability to support sustainable development.

Despite awareness of these growing pressures, these issues are often peripheral to how development agencies work. True, most members of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) have adopted environmental safeguards and are refocusing some of their actions on tackling the climate crisis. Too often, however, development agencies overlook other pressing environmental problems, such as sustainable management of forests, land and water, and related health issues such as sanitation, indoor air pollution and urban slum improvements.  In short, agencies have yet to fully integrate environmental concerns ― including climate change ― in their policies, plans, budgets and actions.

But how? The DAC examined the practices of its members — focusing on the European Union, Sweden and Canada — with support from the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), and identified five steps that agencies should adopt if they want to effectively tackle critical environmental challenges and threats: Continue reading →

The Global South’s contribution to the climate crisis – and its potential solutions

Development Matters Climate change, Non classé , ,

By Harald Fuhr, Professor of International Politics at the University of Potsdam, Germany

DEVELOPMENT-MATTERS-emissionsGlobal CO2 emissions in 2017 totalled some 36.2 gigatonnes (Gt), of which the Global South1 emitted some 21 Gt CO2 or 58%. In the same year, the Global North (including Russia) emitted some 13.7 Gt and contributed to some 38% of global emissions. The remaining 4% are mostly emissions from shipping and aviation (international bunkers).

CO2 emissions in the Global South are heavily concentrated. The top 10 countries of the South contribute some 78% of the group’s emissions (see Table 1). With some 9.8 Gt CO2, China is by far the world’s biggest emitter. In 2017, it emitted more than the US (5.3 Gt CO2) and the EU-28 (3.5 Gt CO2) combined. Just two countries, China and India, are responsible for almost 60% of the Global South’s emissions, followed by other countries in the range of only 2-3% each. In 2017, 56 upper middle-income countries contributed to 46% of global emissions, while 34 low-income countries, most of them in Sub-Sahara Africa, contributed to only 1% of the total. Despite the fact that the latter group hardly contributes to global warming, its countries are likely to be the ones most severely affected by extreme weather events.
Continue reading →

Bold steps to address the global pollution crisis

Development Matters Climate change , , ,

By Rich Fuller, President, Pure Earth, and Founder, Global Alliance on Health and Pollution

sahel-burkina-faso-women-pixabay
Image by Yogendra Singh/Pixabay

A sense of urgency for action against pollution is building. Air pollution and climate agendas both acknowledge the immediate threat to human health and longer-term changes to the planet’s habitability. Uncontrolled industrial pollution in some lower middle-income countries is visible worldwide, and citizens in numerous cities, each experiencing versions of “airpocalypses”, fear for their children’s health and are demanding change. Corporate leaders are responding to demands from board members and consumers for clean supply chains and the development of toxic chemical “footprint” metrics. Pollution is a threat to biodiversity, and air pollution contributes to noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). Such growing public and political attention provides an opportunity for collaborative action to improve health and grow economies.

Continue reading →

What does public procurement have to do with sustainability?

Development Matters policy, SDGs , , , , ,

LJD

By Professor Barbara De Donno, LUISS Guido Carli, Dr Livia Ventura, LUISS Guido Carli, and Andrea De Maio, EPLO 

This blog is part of a special series exploring subjects at the core of the Human-Centred Business Model (HCBM). The HCMB seeks to develop an innovative – human-centred – business model
based on a common, holistic and integrated set of economic, social, environmental and ethical rights-based principles. Read more about the HCBM here, and check out an event about it here
The HCBM project originated in 2015 within the World Bank’s Global Forum on Law, Justice and Development and is now based at the OECD’s Development Centre

Green-cityThe global financial crisis brought significant economic, social and political changes. It fostered the transition from a shareholders’ capitalism model to a new form of stakeholders’ capitalism, moving from maximising shareholders’ wealth to measuring a company’s social responsibility and environmental impact along with its economic value.

The economic, social and environmental dimensions characterise the “triple bottom line” approach, and are at the core of the inclusive and sustainable economic growth promoted by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and captured, more generally, by the sustainable development concept of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Implementing this ambitious agenda requires strong co-operation amongst governments, the private sector and the civil society. Indeed, the importance of the business sector as a force for social change is, nowadays, undisputed and the role of enterprises in creating equitable and sustainable economic growth has gained traction in recent years. Consequently, governments worldwide have enacted statutes and adopted policies to foster a sustainable business ecosystem. And part of this ecosystem for greater sustainability is different forms of public “preferred procurement.”

Public procurement is when governments and state-owned enterprises purchase goods, services and works. It is a key factor in the economy and represents a strategic policy lever for states to drive innovation and change down through supply chains. Public procurement represents approximately 12% of GDP on average in OECD countries, almost 30% of total government expenditures, and up to 25-30 % of GDP in developing countries. Thus, it has a high impact on a country’s economic development and can play a critical role in promoting the inclusive and sustainable economic growth endorsed by the SDGs. Currently, public procurement – which is generally guided by the principles of fairness, transparency, openness and non-discrimination – is increasingly inspired by several forms of “preferred procurement”, such as “green procurement”, “social procurement” and “sustainable procurement”. Continue reading →

We now have a Paris Agreement rulebook, where do we go from here? Insights on environmental policies from randomised impact evaluations

Development Matters Climate change, Natural Resources, policy , , ,

By Iqbal Dhaliwal, Executive Director, and Rebecca Toole, Senior Policy Associate, Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL)

 

gas-pollutionAt the United Nations Climate Change Conference in December 2018 (COP24), parties agreed to a rulebook that lays out how governments will measure, report and verify emissions under the Paris Agreement. Now countries need to act — and know whether policies and programmes are meeting their climate goals.

Thanks to innovations in research design, improvements in measurement technology and an increasing political will to know what works, more opportunities to rigorously evaluate and learn from real-world environment and energy policies exist than many might think.

Take, for example, our work at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) to ensure that policy is informed by scientific evidence. J-PAL is anchored by a network of 171 affiliated professors at more than 50 universities who conduct randomised impact evaluations to answer critical questions in social policy. Our Environment & Energy sector measures the real-world impacts of environmental and energy policies on everything from pollution reduction to climate change mitigation and resilience.

Continue reading →